It was a happy Halloween at the box office last night! David Gordon Green’s Halloween opened in Thursday night previews last night and scored terrifyingly good numbers.
Halloween scored $7.7 million in Thursday night previews which began at 7 PM, at 3,200 venues. The figure bested The Nun‘s $5.4 million previews and it came in just under the $8 million of Paranormal Activity 3‘s midnight previews. Halloween‘s Thursday is arguably the third best preview for a horror film after It’s $13.5 million and the aforementioned Paranormal Activity 3’s $8 million.
True, genre fans are a front-loaded kind of crowd who show up first and then disappear the rest of the weekend, but Halloween is playing like a blockbuster given its multi-generational pull. The drawing power for many is Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her legendary role as Laurie Strode for the first time since 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection. If Halloween follows the gross pattern of It and The Nun, its Thursday will rep 25%-27% of its opening day which would be a $37-$40 million Friday (including previews). Saturday would dip 10%, which would put the second day around $33-$36 million. Sunday would fall roughly 40% from Saturday making it $19.8-$21.6 million, putting the entire weekend between $89.8M-$97.6M.
Now, this is all speculation, and this is only if it follows the same pattern as those two horror hits. Box office changes a lot between Thursday previews and Saturday so it will be interesting to see how Halloween plays. What is known, is that the $10 million film will be profitable by mid-day Friday and it will see a franchise-best opening as well. Then there is that October box office record which was just broken by Venom with its $80 million opening. If Halloween plays as it should, the horror-fest will claim that record as well.
